OK, so I tried it again! This time I brought 12oz water + 4oz milk + 2 tbsp chai masala to a slow boil in small pot. I let it cool down slightly, filtered it, and chucked it into a blender! This basically frothed it up a little. I tossed in some liquid honey and added some Cinnamon on top of the froth. Voila! a fuller more zesty tasting chai masala (than my previous taste test).

It’s not something I would drink everyday, but I would definitely buy this again. The change from green, black, and white teas to this spicy kick-of-a-chai is rewarding. It would be a nice drink to make for a group of friends.

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Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era, received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”

“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

“We can watch our tea, using it as a mirror to reflect the ways in which our every action, in all that we do, is affecting the tea. Any change we make in our daily life will cause ripples across the surface of our tea liquor; and if we just listen carefully, the tea itself will guide us to the balanced place where the times of being an ego and the times of stillness are in harmony. Then we don’t even need to watch or reflect on the ways our lives affect our tea, because at that time our lives will be tea, and tea our lives.”
- Henry Taiki Takahashi

“Nature Does Not Hurry, Yet, Everything Is Accomplished”
- Lao Tse

“You Must Become The Change You Want To See In The World,”
- Mahatma Gandhi

“No Written Word, No Spoken Plea
Can Teach Our Children What They Should Be,
Nor All The Books On All The Shelves, It’s What The Teachers Are Themselves”
- TEDTalk

“We Cannot Do Great Things On This Earth. We Can Only Do Small Things With Great Love.”
- Mother Teresa

“From the moment you enter the dewy path until
it is time to say your goodbye, you should esteem
your host with the utmost respect, in the true
spirit that this very encounter will occur but
once in your lives.”

“Advanced Techniques Are The Basics Mastered”
- Derek Hansen

“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”
- Thomas Jefferson

“The ultimate measure of human beings is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand at times of challenge and controversy.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.

“Everything is unfolding as it has to unfold. We can’t control what is happening but we can choose how we will respond.”
– Kurt Spellmeyer

“Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
- Margaret Mead

“Wisdom teaches me that I am nothing.
Love teachers me that I am everything.
And between the two, my life flows.
- Gil Fronsdal quoting a Tibetan Buddhist Teacher

What is Zen Anyway?

A Japanese corpse
serving tea
- Poetry by Natalie Goldberg

Compassion
Like the Earth’s surface
Is willing and ready to receive all leaves that fall

“But let the mind beware that though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious!”
- Jack Kerouac (Dharma Bums)

“Creativity is not thought driven. Seeing something free of thought – THAT is a creative moment!”
- Rodney Smith

“Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside: candles at four o’clock, warm hearth rugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without”
- Thomas De Quincey

“If we offer quiet to whatever arises, then whatever arises will not expand beyond what it is.”
- Rodney Smith

“As machines become more and more efficient and perfect, so it will become clear that imperfection is the greatness of man”
- Ernst Fischer

“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children.”
~ Khalil Gibran